Fear Of The Unknown

“Of course, in my case, the shock treatment was probably necessary, because my fear of the unknown was greater than any discomfort in the present.  It’s why we often stay in jobs we don’t find fulfilling and why people stay in abusive situations; we are frozen in place, unable to give up our known misery even for the promise of a happier tomorrow.”  Paul Stutzman

My friend Matthew Puckett, recently gave me a book, Hiking Through, One Man’s Journey To Peace And Freedom On The Appalachian Trail, by Paul Stutzman.

Matt said he thought I was supposed to read it.

Matt knows me well.

You may know someone like this.

You may be someone like this.

They would rather remain in the known torture of today, than step out into the unknown territory of tomorrow.

What is it about the day to day “root canal” experience you call your job that makes you want to stay?

Eight hours become a week.

A week becomes a month.

A month become a year.

You blink, as the Kenny Chesney song says, and your life is over.

I have lived it.

Trust me.

A marriage + a mortgage + a month old daughter does not = dad reaching for the stars and going for it.

On the other hand, I may have taught my children, unintentionally to play it safe until it looks like sure success.

No one sees sure success coming.

You may envision it.

You may plan for it.

You may strive for it.

But you can not guarantee it.

You just have to get a good running start and hope there is water at the bottom of the cliff you just dove off of.

You will know in about one hundred feet if it was a successful dive.

Looking back on unattempted success may be a worse fate than attempting and failing.

No one can look back on a successful life if they have not failed more often than they succeeded.

If I had $100.00 dollars for every time I have heard someone say to me, “What I really want to do is…”

I will leave you with this verse.

You can not dispute the truth in this verse.

You can ignore God’s voice within you.

But if you do, this I promise.

It is going to gnaw and burn within you until you do what God has birthed within you to do.

“Abraham trusted God, and when God told him to leave home and go far away to another land that he promised to give him, Abraham obeyed.  Away he went, not even knowing where he was going.”  Hebrews 11:8 (TLB)

John